cats and towers
by ampersandy
Summary: Poor, poor Takeru. Post-series, Genta, Takeru, Chiaki. Slight crossover with GARO and KR:Kabuto. "Genta keeps missing Paris."


title: Of missing le tour Eiffel and red-bowed white cats dressed in shiny golden jackets

series: Samurai Sentai Shinkenger / Kamen Rider Kabuto / GARO

characters/pairings: Takeru, Genta, Chiaki, Mitsuki Kaoru, and mentions of Tendou Souji, DaiGoyou, Jii, and Mako. maybe kind of Takeru/Genta but only because Chiaki kinda ships it.

rating: PG, for CRIMINAL ACTS.

summary: Poor, poor Takeru.

notes: YOU KNOW THIS FIC STARTED OUT JUST BEING ABOUT GENTA AND TAKERU AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN CHIAKI THE DRUG SMUGGLER INVADED!

notes 2: Tendou isn't in this in person, sorry!

xxxx

The first three times Genta flew to Paris, he alternately overshot, undershot, and just plain got lost. Takeru very quickly got used to phone calls in the middle of the night--"Take-chan, Take-chan, how do I get to the Eiffel Tower from the Empire State Building?" "Take-chan, why doesn't anyone in Germany speak French?" "Take-chan, I think I messed up these directions, how do I walk from Normandy to Paris?"--and after assuring Jii that no, Genta wasn't _dead_ or, worse, dragging the name of the Shiba clan through every international airport from Narita to JFK, he usually managed to get things sorted out (if by 'sorted out' one meant 'got Genta and DaiGoyou home as soon as possible with a minimum of property damage').

"So," said Takeru, sitting on a stool at Genta's sushi cart (the Kuroko would be taking it back to the mansion when Genta left), "are you_ sure_ you're going to be all right this time? No sleeping through the layover in Paris before the plane goes on to America? No getting off at the layover even though you were actually supposed to stay on? No taking the wrong train all the way out to Normandy?"

Genta nodded firmly, his face set and his eyes alight. He grinned broadly. "Don't worry, Take-chan, third time's the charm! Or, uh, fourth!" Takeru sighed. Well, he couldn't get much more wrong, right? ...right? He swallowed the last of his mouthful of sushi, and turned to get one final promise from Genta that he'd be okay--and Genta was gone. Well.

Takeru sat back down at the cart and took the next piece of sushi on his plate.

xxxx

At nine o'clock at night, Takeru was usually in the midst of light training exercises to keep himself limber. His Shodophone sat on the deck while he sparred with an invisible opponent, and when it rang he nearly fell over in his haste to answer it.

"Genta?" he asked, "did you move into your apartment yet?"

"Huuuh?" drawled the voice on the other end of the line.

Takeru relaxed, momentarily. "Oh," he said, "Chiaki." Then he tensed up. Chiaki only ever called him for one reason--"how much do you need?"

"What? No no no, nothing like that," said Chiaki, sounding leisurely convincing for all of a minute, "Takeru, I, uh, need you to come down to the police station. With Jii-chan, preferably."

"You need me to--why do you need me to come down to the police station?"

Chiaki coughed, laughing nervously. "This policeman seems to think I'm smuggling drugs in this stuffed animal, y'see," he began.

"Stop, I'll be right there," said Takeru, cutting him off immediately. "..._are_ you smuggling drugs in stuffed animals?"

"No!" answered Chiaki, sounding affronted, "I won that Hello Kitty fair and square! It took forever, too, I'm really bad at that darts game and it's _expensive_ so I had to save up _and_ fast from Tekken 6 for like a week and--"

Takeru hung up. "Jii," he called, standing.

xxxx

Four hours later, during the walk back to the mansion, something finally occurred to Takeru.

"Why did you have a giant Hello Kitty stuffed animal?" he asked, nervous about the answer.

Chiaki grinned, cheeky as always. "It was for you," he reported, "your house is so lonely without all of us in it~ I thought I'd dress it up like Gen-chan or something to keep you company!"

Takeru's likely violent response to _that_ mental image was interrupted by his Shodophone ringing.

He checked the caller id first, this time--he didn't want to call Mako Genta again, that had resulted in five minutes of teasing--"Genta," he said, "I trust you made it to your apartment safely?"

"Noooot quite," answered a young-sounding feminine voice on the other end of the line.

"What do you mean not quite?" asked Takeru suspiciously, "and who is this?"

"My name's Mitsuki Kaoru," the woman introduced herself, "your friend appears to have confused his apartment number with mine."

Takeru groaned. "And here I thought he couldn't mess things up any more," he said.

"Clearly you don't know your friend very well, he's arguing with his paper lantern and asking me about sushi supplies as we speak," answered the woman, and all of a sudden Takeru could make out the faint cries of 'Oyabuuuun!' and' DaiGoyouuuu!' that heralded another of their tiffs.

"I sincerely apologize," he began, using as humble Japanese as he could manage (Chiaki started laughing at him halfway through the first word), "he's--stubborn."

"And energetic," agreed the woman, "I've called the apartment manager, we should have things sorted out soon enough! He's a very interesting young man, I think I'll paint him--I just thought I'd call you, he kept babbling about 'Take-chan's going to be happy with me' when he arrived--"

Takeru's lips quirked into a smile. Well, almost.

"At least he actually made it into Paris this time," he said, sighing, "thank you very much for looking after him. I'll call again when it's day time here."

"Oh, that's right, it's late, isn't it? Sorry! I'll tell him we spoke."

Takeru hung up the phone, and ignored Jii and Chiaki smirking at him.

xxxx

"You talked to Take-chan and you didn't _tell me_?" squawked Genta.

"You were trying to start a wrestling match with the lantern, I didn't want to interrupt," answered Kaoru defensively.

"This is your fault!" accused Genta, getting into (another) staring match with DaiGoyou.

Kaoru groaned. This was _not_ how she'd intended to spend her afternoon! She glanced at the blobs slowly taking the shape of the arguing odd-couple across the counter from her, though, and smiled. It had been a while since she'd painted something this lively. Probably since--Tendou-san!

Kaoru's eyes lit up. "Genta-kun," she said, pleasantly, "there's someone I think you should go visit!"

Genta's grin was basically the brightest thing she'd ever seen. "Who?" he asked.

"His name is Tendou Souji-kun, he lives upstairs!"

xxxx

this has been up at my lj for a while now but I figured I'd best post it here, too :D

I apologize about the previous formatting, I keep getting eaten line breaks.


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